How many csa members per acre

The primary efficiency comes in minimizing foot traffic. Nitty gritty design within your garden is also of vital importance to saving money and maximizing efficiency. JM gives this example:. JM has a 4-person crew on his farm, including his wife. He was included in that crew up until this year, when he was asked to take on a new project of setting up a learning center using a 5-acre farm. When considering what type of property to invest in, or what to consider within your existing property for setting up your market garden, JM says you also want to look at:.

Permanent raised beds require a bit of investment up front, but the long-term time saving benefits on tilling, weeding, amending and maintaining the soil are huge. JM and his crew use a tool called a harrow in place of a traditional rototiller. The harrow is better for soil health and ideal for a micro-farm. They have eliminated much of their weed issues by using black UV-treated tarps placed over the raised beds.

This heats up the soil so seeds germinate while weeds are starved of light and quickly killed off. This encourages weed seed germination in the top 2 inches of the soil. Then just before planting your crop, you carefully destroy the weeds using a power harrow attached to a walk behind tractor, a wheel-hoe or a flame-weeder.

As JM outlines below, this is surprisingly not the case:. You need to grow them for days to get a little out of them and in that time I could cut salad heads three times. They have figured out how to grow nearly every other type of local produce on a micro-scale.

Can the produce yields and variety you get from a 1. The biggest expense on farms is labor. For those thinking of applying these principles to fund a part-time hobby farm, JM says this:. In this next year he will be focused on his new project of designing a 5-acre market garden learning center using the same design principles he used to develop his 1.

Be sure to sign up for his newsletter, as he will soon be releasing an instructional DVD documenting an entire year on the farm. You can catch an excellent interview with JM at: www. Kristen Boye is the editor of Rethink:Rural and the owner of Holistic Writing Conceptsa copy and content writing company specializing in the natural health and green living markets.

Kristen lives with her husband and two children on their medicinal herb farm in beautiful rural Western North Carolina. Visit her online at: www. Subscribe to get all of our latest content sent directly to your inbox, or contact us directly with any questions you have. Cultivating a love of nature is one of the best things we can do to protect our children's physical, mental and emotional health.

We pack the shares straight into iced coolers early in the morning and leave them in the shade until they are picked up by next Spring I want to build a cool-bot cooler. So shares would take a few hours, 3 days a week.

Fortunately we don't have to deliver, because we are in the city. I could not afford to deliver for sure.

Marketing has not been a problem so far. Again we are in the city and have had plenty of demand. As long as I keep producing the product I am now, I believe people will come back next year and recommend me to others. My biggest fear is not being able to deliver what I promise. And the biggest hurdle I see is labor. I plan on making the main job of the work share folks harvesting and getting shares ready as well as transplanting into the field.

University of Texas at Dallas is close by and we have plenty of independent garden stores in the area. I envision environmentally-conscious or vegetarian college students doing workshares, with maybe 2 friends working for and spliting one share. I notice that most CSA's use interns, work shares or volunteers for much of their labor. For weed control on the large crops I may use some plastic mulchalthough for the time involed I could just lay hay or leaves.

Again, I know this will be a challenge, but I think it can be done. Before finding out I was getting laid off, I had planned to work up to around 20 shares this Falla tall order with a full-time job. Instead of getting another job and postponing what I really want to do, I have decided to go for it. I know the job is physically, mentally, and emotionally demanding at times. Then again, working for someone in an office is much worse in my mind. Pete it is awesome you are at this crossroads and ready to go for it.

That will give you leeway and less stress. My most stressed ever was my first CSA year when I didn't have the produce amounts from the year before and I was a wreck. It is all about keeping the customers you know.

Could you please explain what a CSA is? Those of us not familiar with market gardening have no idea what some of those abbreviations stand for. CSA programs are designed to build a relationship between the farmer and the community.

We commit to raising your food with sustainable and environmentally responsible practices. You also know that your food is grown locally, handled minimally, and not shipped from across the country or even across the world!

CSA members pay for an entire season of food upfront. This early bulk payment enables your farmer to plan for the season, purchase new seed, make equipment repairs, order chicks, buy feed, and more. Members also share with the farmer some of the risks and benefits that come with farming. A growing season can bring an abundance of food, but on occasion it can have less than ideal conditions hail, insects, accidents etc.

Here is a link that might be useful: Chimney Creek Farm. Personally, I would double what you are doing, maybe 3x. I found that by doing that, even with only market gardening, I had enough time to change the way I had to garden.

The more you grow, there will be some changes that you will need to do. These changes can be very simple, and others are major. I did a CSA for 1 year and had 3 members. I had trouble getting that many. This was about 10 years ago and CSA wasn't quite what people wanted. I lived near a good sized city, so the population was there. Not knowing what the weather will hand you each year, is very difficult for farmers.

Hopefully you will get members that are familiar with CSAs uncertainties. New to CSA members may not be too forgiving if it happens to be a bad year for you. One thing I noticed both during our short csa year and since just growing produce for market was trying to figure shares per acre depends on how many different types of product you are growing.

With the plants that produce several pounds of produce such as tomatoes and peppers you need less acres, but the plants like carrots and turnips take more acres. So my thought would be a large table like Territorial Seed has that tells how many plants per acre to start figuring how many acres needed. Then decide how many shares you can produce off those acres. This might not read right but a little thought will tell you what I mean.

I believe they also have a program for planning your gardens and crops that is publicized as easy to use. Clicking on the translation link activates a free translation service to convert the page to Spanish. As with any Internet translation, the conversion is not context-sensitive and may not translate the text to its original meaning. NC State Extension does not guarantee the accuracy of the translated text.

Consumers become CSA members by paying an agreed amount at the beginning of the growing season, either in one lump sum or in installments. This upfront payment helps buy the seed and other inputs needed for the season and provides the farmer an immediate income to begin the season. It's a great groundwork movement that is affordable for farmers and trustworthy for customers.

To learn more about this great program, check out their site. Every week. You are our priority. We're the real deal. As a CSA member, you are an informed consumer and truly eating seasonally and locally. Education is one of Farmer Mike's top priorities, and you'll be privy to all the happenings on the farm through our newsletters, tours, and social media presence.

This CSA is completely transparent. You can trust One Acre Farm knowing you are getting exactly what you have signed up for as well as complete honesty about the farm, how we're growing, the challenges the farm faces, and its successes. This is the real deal. Be part of the farm's future. You make this farm possible. Our Pick-Your-Own Day is an extremely popular perk for our members. Right before Thanksgiving, CSA members are invited to the farm to pick the bounty from our fields.

This is a way for us all to share in the success of the farm, which our CSA members have made possible. It's a celebration of the farm and your support! As a CSA member, you get access the goings on of the farm and also, wonderful recipes that you can use your share vegetables for.